Sunday, February 24, 2008

Welcome Back Ralph!

Ralph Nader announced today that he's running for president     . . . again.  

Don Quixote has nothing on old Ralph.  Nader is willing to tilt at a few more windmills and run another futile, losing campaign.  I'm just not sure why.

Is he an egomaniac?  That's possible.  I've never been a press darling (though I should be) but Nader has.  Maybe media attention is as addictive as crack cocaine and Ralph is an attention junkie.

Or is he delusional?  If he's running and thinking that he's going to win (or even come close) then certainly he is delusional.  Not because of the strength of the other candidates but because of the inherent impossibility of a third party candidate winning at this point in American history.

Is he running to help John McCain?  Crazy as it may seem, it could be true.  One would expect more of Nader's votes to be pulled from the Democrat's rather than the Republican's column.  At 73, he's also older than McCain (72) and could unwittingly (?) diffuse the age issue.  McCain is no conservative so maybe he's palatable to Ralph.

Or is conventional wisdom wrong because McCain is not conservative?  Since McCain based his primary strategy on gathering votes from Democrats, will those Democrats who genuinely object to their party's eventual nominee now have another place to turn.

I'm not sure about Ralph Nader's motives but his candidacy is likely to make things more interesting.  And I'm all for that.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Your analysis ignores the potential Ron Paul 3rd Party run which would snipe down McCain's totals a bit. GO RON GO! KEEP HOPE ALIVE!